At first, it looks like a straight daily deals site by Amazon in the mould of Groupon: the deal today is 50% off ice cream and shakes at a local store.

But it's not. The deal actually comes from LivingSocial, which counts Amazon among its big investors, and it seems that what Amazon Local is doing is actually aggregating deals from other companies. Right now it's just LivingSocial but there's no reason why it wouldn't include other players. There's also a sweetener for using Amazon Local in the form of Visa reward points.

This looks like an experiment by Amazon more than anything else at this point, but it's a smart one.

The daily deals market is huge and Amazon needs to be there. At the same time, it's a bit difficult to tackle. It requires a huge sales force and a presence in every state. It poses serious tax issues for Amazon. And daily deals are as much about advertising as they are about commerce, and does Amazon really want to tackle Google and Yelp and Foursquare in local advertising?

So the aggregation route, like investing in LivingSocial, is a smart way to get intelligence, relationships, and of course money, in a huge fast-growing space without having to go all-in.

We look forward to seeing whether/how Amazon rolls this out more widely. We're also curious what our friends at Yipit think about having Jeff Bezos as their new competitor.

The Bleachers

Amazon is going to strike gold with this. They are already know for having experience in daily deals, and they are a very well-known company.

A great way for consumers to save is by using http://www.dailydealpool.com, a site that will email you daily with the best sales and deals in your area, ensuring you don't miss out on a great buy and keeping you from having to search all the daily deal sites cropping up.

REVEALED: Amazon's Secret Groupon-Killer Is Live, And It's Not What You'd Expect